


Night Shift

by vericus



Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: Fluff, Jazz singing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-13
Updated: 2012-06-13
Packaged: 2017-11-07 16:26:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/433144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vericus/pseuds/vericus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The beauty of the night shift is that no one else is around to know what those working it get up to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night Shift

"Hey Red. How's things?" Jazz asked, poking his head into the security office. Red Alert looked up and scowled - Jazz was not his favourite mech at the moment. The saboteur had recently aided Sideswipe in a prank that had inadvertently caused Red Alert's CPU to fritz, which meant Ratchet had stuck him on light duty again - otherwise known as the night shift. The fact that Jazz had confessed, and made Sideswipe confess, hadn't mollified the security mech much, since it now meant that they were both on the night shift, as well. Fortunately, Sideswipe was on patrol outside, but Jazz's station was in front of Teletraan, just down the hall from the security office.

"'Things' are fine, as you would have known if you'd just comm'ed me," Red Alert said icily.

"Aw, don't be like that, Red," Jazz said with a slight grin, taking the security mech's response - incorrectly - as an invitation to come in. The saboteur all but collapsed into the spare chair in the room, propping his feet up on one of the consoles. Red Alert shoved them off unceremoniously.

"Your _duty_ is to monitor Teletraan," the security mech snapped.

"Yeah, an' I can see it just fine from here," Jazz said, pointing to the appropriate monitor. Red Alert promptly switched it to another camera. Jazz, irritatingly, reached out and flicked it back without saying a word. Red Alert switched it again. Jazz switched it back.

"Jazz," Red Alert growled.

"What?" Jazz asked innocently.

"Go attend to your post!" the security mech snapped.

"I am attendin' to it," Jazz replied equably. "I'm tapped inta th'communications mainframe, an' your cameras are good enough that I can see th'screen from here easily." Red Alert wished, for the first time since the Autobots had landed on earth, that his cameras were not quite so good.

"And what if something comes up?" he asked irritably.

"It'll take me five seconds t'get down th'hall," Jazz replied.

"That's five seconds lost," Red Alert growled.

"And?" Jazz asked with a shrug. Red Alert could tell he wasn't going to budge the saboteur at that point, so he settled for glaring at him. Jazz stared back calmly, until finally Red Alert turned back to his screens. Jazz was a social mech - if Red Alert ignored him, he'd probably go away.

Jazz was also unpredictable, however. He didn't leave, and he didn't bother Red Alert - consciously, at least. The security mech found himself hyper-aware of the other mech, and he spent more time focussing on Jazz than he did on his work, waiting for the saboteur to either bother him or go away. Which, much to Red Alert's irritation, was turning out to be another unfounded fear - at least until 2 AM rolled around. As focussed as he was on Jazz, it didn't take Red Alert long to detect the humming, and predisposed to be so, quickly became irritated with it.

"Stop that!" he snapped after no more than a minute, when it became clear that Jazz wasn't just humming a short little tune.

"Sorry, was it botherin' ya?" Jazz asked so apologetically that Red Alert immediately felt guilty for snapping.

"Yes," he muttered, hunching his shoulders and refusing to look at the saboteur.

"I'll stop then," Jazz said agreeably. Red Alert risked a glance back, half-hoping to see Jazz smirking at him, which would rid the security mech of his guilt. But Jazz was diligently watching the monitor displaying Teletraan, head twitching slightly this way and that as he flipped through the various channels. Red Alert turned back to his monitors stiffly, now feeling even more guilty - he hadn't thought of it before, but Jazz wouldn't be able to listen to his music if he was wirelessly tapped into the communications mainframe, and Jazz without music was like...like...Megatron without his fusion cannon. It just didn't happen very often, not without good reason.

What the reason could be, Red Alert couldn't fathom for several minutes, until he circled back to his original thought about how Jazz was a social mech and would eventually leave. Jazz had probably wanted company, and since the only other mech out of recharge at the moment was slagged off at Jazz for getting him in trouble, that left Red Alert. Who, granted, was slagged off at Jazz as well, but at least he was nearby. The thought made Red Alert feel even guiltier.

It wasn't like it was hard to put Red Alert's CPU in a fritz after all - it was a glitch he'd lived with all his life, and he knew just how bad it was. Under normal circumstances, it probably would have prevented him in serving with the Autobots. He'd been lucky, though - Prowl had been his examiner when he'd signed up, and the tactician had a similar glitch, if not as bad. So really, getting slagged off at someone for crashing his CPU was rather pointless. He'd be slagged off at the entire base if he took that much offense every time his CPU was fritzed - even Optimus had managed to do it once or twice.

No, what Red Alert was really slagged off about was being stuck on the night shift - which, even a die-hard security mech like himself would admit, was utterly _boring._ He enjoyed sitting behind the cameras and watching the other mechs go about their business - enjoyed trying to figure out what the twins were up to, trying to guess where Mirage was going to turn up next. Watching the Dinobots lumber about, trying desperately not to crush anything or anyone. Observing the Aerialbots and their antics, waiting for the inevitable fireball and smoke from Wheeljack's lab, counting the wrenches mechs managed to dodge coming out of med bay versus the ones that hit their marks. It was...satisfying, to see the other Autobots moving about, doing their daily business, and knowing he was helping to keep them safe. Not to mention how satisfying it was when he caught Ravage or Lazerbeak poking around.

At night, however, all the mechs might as well have all been gone for good. There were no cameras in personal quarters - not that Red Alert would want them there, despite what some mechs might say. He was not a voyeur. So besides the mech on communications duty in front of Teletraan, there was no one else around. It was boring and unsettling. Hence why Red Alert always got slagged off when he was assigned to the night shift after someone else fritzed his CPU.

None of which really made Red Alert feel any better about snapping at Jazz. His only company for the night - for the next _week_ of night shifts - and he'd snapped at him, when Jazz had wanted company badly enough to forgo his music. Red Alert let out a huff, irritated with himself.

"A'right there Red?" Jazz asked casually, and Red started.

"Ah - yes, fine," the security director said stiffly - then inwardly cursed himself. That would have been the perfect opportunity to make amends somehow - strike up a conversation or something. He was not the best at social interactions sometimes, though, and it would probably seem odd if he stuck up a conversation now, and even more odd if he just told Jazz that he could hum if he liked. Red Alert scowled to himself, trying to figure out a way to fix the situation.

Finally, it hit him. Jazz may be unable to listen to music on his internal radio, but that didn't mean there couldn't be music coming from elsewhere. Unfortunately, the security room's terminals were also isolated from the network and contained no wireless modems, which meant that there was no way for Red Alert to pipe Jazz's usual music into the room. However, there _was_ a chance that one of the other mechs Red Alert regularly had assigned to security duty had brought some music of their own.

Glancing over his shoulder to make sure Jazz was still watching Teletraan - which he was - Red Alert began inconspicuously sorting through the files on the security terminal, looking past the flimsy firewalls the various mechs wrote in to hide their 'non-work' files from him. They all knew he knew they were there, but so long as they didn't let the files interfere with their duties, Red Alert said nothing, and didn't disturb them. Until tonight. He carefully bypassed each of the firewalls instead of breaking them, though, searching for music files, until finally, in Mirage's data collection, he found some. Unsurprisingly, they were traditional Cybertronian pieces, but Jazz had said many times that he loved all music, no matter the source culture. So Red Alert picked one at random, activated the security room speakers, and hit 'play'.

The music drifted out quietly at first, Red Alert staunchly ignoring any reaction from Jazz. Then the saboteur began singing softly, and Red Alert glanced over at him curiously. Jazz looked back after a moment.

"It's a traditional piece. One'a th'first few I learned," the saboteur said, looking somewhat embarrassed. Red Alert paused, then turned the volume up to a more respectable level, and Jazz's singing rose in volume accordingly. The saboteur wasn't the best Cybertronian singer of all time by any means, but he was certainly the best out of all the Cybertronians currently on Earth (barring Decepticons - Seekers, as a general, unfathomable rule, had incredible singing voices. According to Skyfire, Starscream's was actually quite exceptional, despite how screechy he sounded when speaking or yelling). And it was pleasant to listen to. Red Alert was almost sad when the song ended.

"Where'd ya find that?" Jazz asked quietly after a few moments.

"Mirage's files," Red Alert replied easily.

"Aha! You do go through th'other mechs files!" Jazz said teasingly. Red Alert snorted.

"Only tonight. I really have no desire to read Hound's Cybertronian romance novels or peruse Inferno's collection of human disasters," the security mech said.

"Romance novels?" Jazz coughed, then laughed. "Yer kidding me!"

"Take a look if you want," Red Alert said, motioning to the terminal grumpily.

"Nah, I believe ya. Man, I'm gonna have fun with that one," Jazz mused. "Put on another song, why dontcha? Unless I was botherin' you singin'?"

"Far from it. Why don't you pick? Mirage's collection is rather limited I'm afraid, but I'm sure you can find something else you know," Red Alert said, and after a moment, Jazz was peeking over his shoulder at the terminal.

"That one," Jazz said after a few seconds, pointing, and Red Alert brought it up as Jazz returned to his chair. The security mech couldn't stop a smile from crossing his face as the saboteur began to sing - maybe the next week of night shifts wouldn't be so bad with Jazz for company.

\---

Sideswipe grumbled to himself as he stalked into the Ark, dripping wet, his lower parts caked in mud. It was _not_ a pleasant night outside - even less so, in fact, because until yesterday he wasn't supposed to be out tonight. Then Jazz had an attack of conscience after their prank made Red's CPU fritz out, and made Sideswipe fess up with him. Only Prowl quite obviously knew that Sideswipe was being forced to confess - when did Jazz's blackmail collection on him get so large, anyways? - so he gave the red mech the harsher of the two punishments: night time perimeter patrol, as opposed to night time communications monitoring duty.

And now that he was at the end of his shift, Sideswipe felt like going and giving Jazz a nice, big _hug_ as a thank you for getting him to tell Prowl. A surprise hug. Around his knees. Followed by some friendly wrestling, which may or may not end up involving the bucket of mud in his subspace. Sideswipe grinned as he neared the command center, quieting his footsteps. Sneaking up on Jazz was normally impossible, but the saboteur was infamous for getting absorbed in his music when on during the night shift. So, maybe, Sideswipe had a chance. If not, he could still tackle the mech - it just wouldn't be a surprise.

Sideswipe was the one who was surprised, however, when he rounded the corner to the control room and found Jazz nowhere in sight. Almost immediately, he flattened himself against the wall, optics darting around, expecting a black and white blur to come at him from the shadows. But Jazz was nowhere to be seen, and as Sideswipe watched, he saw Teletraan scrolling through the communications channels as if someone was sitting at the console scrolling through it. Or tapped into it wirelessly.

Sideswipe looked around suspiciously, carefully stepping away from the wall. Jazz was well able to tap into Teletraan wirelessly, but even Sideswipe wasn't fool enough to think that just _listening_ was enough - you had to see the screens when monitoring communications. And that feed, Jazz couldn't tap into, not without overriding his optics, which Ratchet would smack him for good and proper.

Which left the question: where was Jazz?

There were a limited number of terminals that could handle the communications feed - namely, the ones in Prime's, Ratchet's, and Prowl's offices. Jazz wouldn't go into the first two without their owners present, and as for the last one...Sideswipe headed stealthily for Prowl's office, but a quick tap on the door controls revealed it to be locked with Prowl's personal code (the 'I _will_ throw you in the brig for the next vorn' message that flashed when he touched it was a dead giveaway there).

Sideswipe paused in front of Prowl's door, puzzled, trying to figure out where Jazz could be. Then, as he stood there, he became aware of...music. Somewhere nearby, but behind a door. Sideswipe spun around, focusing on the sound, knowing that wherever the music was coming from, that was where Jazz would be. Carefully he tracked the melody, not paying attention to where he was going, until he found himself in front of a door. He stared in surprise as he realized it was the security office, and hesitated for several moments. He really doubted Jazz would go see Red after their prank earlier that day, but Red wouldn't be playing music. The puzzle was easily solved, however - cautiously, Sideswipe palmed open the door.

The red twin then had to reset his audios and optics when he saw that the lyrics he'd been hearing weren't part of the recording - _Jazz_ was singing them. And he was good - there had been speculation around the Ark that Jazz could sing, but the saboteur had never proved or disproved the rumours. More startling than Jazz's singing, however, was Red humming along, the music actually playing from the security director's terminal. It was...a surprisingly calm scene, especially considering the Bots involved. Sideswipe was loathe to interrupt, and he stood there for several moments, just listening and enjoying the scene before he spoke up.

"Well, now I know why you got me to fess up. You two do this often?" Sideswipe asked, and judging from the jerk and surprised look on his face, the red twin actually managed to startle Jazz, though Red Alert just reached over and dialled down the volume of the music Jazz had been singing to.

"Nah, first time." Jazz said with a grin after he recovered. Sideswipe paused, a snappy comeback ready, but somehow he just couldn't bring himself to voice it.

"Patch me in next time." the red twin said instead, then turned and went off to track down his brother, who was supposed to relieve him on patrol duty. It was time everyone sharing a corridor with the twins was up anyways, Sideswipe decided, pulling the bucket of mud out of his subspace and grinning evilly as he went. Back in the security office, Jazz grinned before bidding Red 'good morning' and returning to Teletraan, so his replacement could find him. Red smiled slightly in reply, then closed out of Mirage's files, doing his best to cover his tracks. He wouldn't want the spy to get in a huff and remove his files from the terminal, after all.

\---

Prowl never did figure out why, after their respective punishments/recuperative period was over, Jazz, Red Alert, and Sideswipe would volunteer for the same night shift once a month.


End file.
